How Every School in the AP Top 25 Got Its Nickname

The college football season kicks off next week. Prepare yourself by taking a look at how each team in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25 got its nickname.

1. University of Southern California

USC’s athletic teams were known as the Methodists or Wesleyans until 1912, when athletics director Warren Bovard asked 25-year-old Los Angeles Times sportswriter Owen Bird to come up with a better nickname. Bird first referred to USC as the Trojans in a 1912 track preview. In explaining his new moniker, he wrote, “The term 'Trojan' as applied to USC means… that no matter what the situation, what the odds or what the conditions, the competition must be carried on to the end and those who strive must give all they have and never be weary in doing so.”

2. Alabama

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Hugh Roberts, sports editor for the Birmingham Age-Herald, is widely credited as being the first to use “Crimson Tide” to refer to Alabama’s football team. Roberts used the term to describe crimson-and-white-clad Alabama’s surprising performance during a rain-soaked 6-6 tie with heavily favored Auburn in 1907. Henry “Zipp” Newman, who became the sports editor of the Birmingham News at the age of 25, helped popularize the nickname. Sportswriters are also to thank for the elephant that serves as Alabama’s mascot. The elephant reference dates back to the school’s 10-0 season in 1930, when sportswriters began referring to Alabama head coach Wallace Wade’s hulking linemen as the Red Elephants.

3. Louisiana State

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By most accounts, LSU took its nickname back in 1896 during a perfect 6-0 season under the leadership of coach A.W. Jeardeau. While Tigers was a popular nickname at the time, the moniker carried additional meaning for LSU, tracing its roots to the Civil War. The nickname was reportedly derived from a group of Confederate soldiers from New Orleans known as the Tiger Rifles, and was eventually applied to all of the Louisiana troops in General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. LSU’s first logo—a snarling tiger head—was borrowed from the Washington Artillery militia unit in New Orleans.

4. Oklahoma

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The Sooners trace their nickname to the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, when, at noon on April 22 of that year, the borders of the Oklahoma Territory were opened to eager settlers in search of free land. Settlers who crossed the border before noon, including land surveyors and railroad workers who took advantage of the access that their positions granted them to claim territory for themselves, were called Sooners. The university’s athletic teams were known as the Rough Riders or Boomers until Sooners was officially adopted in 1908. Boomers were settlers who lobbied the U.S. government to open unassigned lands in the Oklahoma Territory.

5. Oregon

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Oregon’s athletic teams were originally known as the Webfoots. Californians used Webfoots as a derisive nickname for their rain-soaked neighbors to the north, while Oregonians embraced the moniker with pride. According to Oregon’s athletics website, the Ducks nickname emerged out of sportswriters’ need for a shortened version of Webfoots to appear in headlines. The student body adopted Ducks as their official nickname and Oregon’s first athletic director, Leo Harris, made an informal agreement with Walt Disney that granted Oregon permission to use Donald Duck’s likeness in the team logo.

6. Georgia

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When Herman J. Stegeman took over as head coach in 1920, Georgia’s football team, which had previously been referred to as the Red and Black, became known as the Wildcats. Atlanta Journal sportswriter Morgan Blake took issue with the unoriginal moniker, pointing out that it was already shared by at least two other teams in the south—Kentucky State and Davidson. “I had hoped that Georgia would adopt some original nickname that would stand out,” Blake wrote. “…The ‘Georgia Bulldogs’ would sound good, because there is a certain dignity about a bulldog as well as ferocity, and the name is not common as ‘Wildcats’ and ‘Tigers.’ Yale is about the only team I recall right now that has the name.”

One week after Blake’s story ran, Cliff Wheatley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution referred to Georgia as the Bulldogs several times in his recap of the team’s tie at Virginia. The new nickname quickly caught on.

7. Florida State

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After the Florida State College for Women was renamed The Florida State University in 1947, students voted Seminoles as the school’s nickname, a nod to the state’s Seminole Tribe. Some of the other suggestions that were considered include Golden Falcons, Statesmen, Crackers, Tarpons and Fighting Warriors. As The Daily Democrat noted in its coverage of the student vote, “The only conflict which may arise from the result, students say, lies in the fact that the University of Florida yearbook is named ‘The Seminole.’”

In 2005, the NCAA granted Florida State a waiver from a new policy that prohibited colleges from using hostile or abusive Native American names and imagery.

8. Michigan

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Michigan was not nicknamed the Wolverine State because a large number of the largest member of the weasel family roamed within its borders. In fact, the first verified sighting of a wolverine in Michigan wasn’t until 2004. Instead, the state nickname may date back to a border dispute between Ohio and Michigan in 1803 known as the Toledo War. It’s unclear whether the Ohioans applied the nickname to their rivals as a derogatory term or if Michiganders coined it themselves as a source of pride. Wolverines were well known as a fierce and ornery species that would kill much larger prey. Regardless, Michigan would become known as the Wolverine State and the University of Michigan adopted the nickname for its athletic teams.

9. South Carolina

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According to USC’s website, the Gamecock nickname was adopted in 1902 after South Carolina upset Clemson, 12-6. USC students paraded through the streets carrying a transparency that depicted a gamecock standing over a fallen tiger. The transparency, which had been displayed in a storefront window, was reportedly drawn by USC professor F. Horton Colcock and prompted an angry response from the Clemson Cadets. The gamecock symbol on the transparency was likely derived from the nickname bestowed upon General Thomas Sumter, a South Carolina hero during the American Revolution. Sumter was often called the Carolina Game Cock for his fierce fighting tactics. In 1903, South Carolina’s newspaper, The State, shortened the nickname to one word and began referring to USC’s athletic teams as the Gamecocks.

10. Arkansas

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Arkansas’s athletic teams weren’t always known as the Razorbacks. From 1894 until 1910, the football team was known as the Cardinals, a reference to the deep shade of red that the student body voted the school’s official color—over heliotrope—in 1895. Upon returning to Fayetteville after Arkansas’s 1909 team capped off an undefeated season with a 16-9 win at rival LSU, head coach Hugo Bezdek announced to the crowd of cheering students that his team had played “like a wild band of Razorback hogs.” Arkansas High School in Texarkana, Texas, which first used the Razorbacks nickname, agreed to share the moniker and the wild boar known for its fighting ability was adopted as the university’s mascot in 1910. “Wooo, Pig, Sooie” was incorporated as the school yell, or “Hog Call,” during the 1920s, while the Razorbacks debuted a live mascot in the 1960s.

11. West Virginia

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West Virginia’s football team was known as the Snakes until Mountaineers was adopted in the early 1900s. The nickname went well with the state motto, “Mountaineers are always free.” West Virginia’s Mountaineer mascot first appeared during the 1934-35 school year.

12. Wisconsin

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Wisconsin’s school nickname is borrowed from its state nickname, which is derived from the lead miners who built temporary shelters into the southwest Wisconsin hillside during the 1830s. The term was initially applied to settlers in the mining area, and then to the entire state. The Badgers nickname was adopted by the school’s football team when it began play in 1889. The school had a live badger mascot for a few years, but after it escaped its handlers too many times, it was retired to the Madison Zoo. Today, Bucky Badger is one of the most beloved mascots in college sports.

13. Michigan State

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When Michigan Agricultural College changed its name to Michigan State College in 1925, the school sponsored a contest to select a new nickname, as Aggies was no longer appropriate. The winning entry, Staters, wasn’t good enough for George S. Alderton, the sports editor of the Lansing State-Journal, so Alderton took it upon himself to choose another nickname. Alderton inquired about some of the other nicknames that had been submitted and settled on Spartans, which he used while covering the Michigan State baseball team’s southern training tour in 1926. After initially spelling Spartans with an ‘o,’ Alderton corrected the spelling and started using the Spartans nickname in headlines. “It began appearing in other newspapers and when the student publication used it, that clinched it,” Alderton said.

14. Clemson

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When Walter Merritt Riggs established the first football team at Clemson in 1896, he borrowed the colors (purple and orange) and nickname (Tigers) from his previous institution, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, which would later become Auburn.

15. Texas

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In the early 1900s, the Texas athletic teams were known primarily as the Varsity or Steers, and occasionally the Longhorns. In 1913, school benefactor H.J. Lutcher Stark, who had previously served as the football team’s manager, donated warm-up blankets with the word “Longhorn” sewn into them. The student body adopted Longhorns as the school’s official nickname and introduced a live Longhorn as the official mascot in 1916.

16. Virginia Tech

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After the Virginia General Assembly changed the name of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College to the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute in 1896, the school held a contest to come up with a new spirit yell. O.M. Stull, a member of the class of 1896, won the $5 prize for his cheer, which began, “Hoki, Hoki, Hoki, Hy! Techs, Techs, V.P.I.!” According to Virginia Tech’s school website, an ‘e’ was added to the end of ‘Hoki’ by 1903 and Stull’s cheer became known as “Old Hokie.” Virginia Tech’s connection with the turkey (or gobbler, if you prefer) may date back to 1909, when coach Branch Bocock initiated his players into an informal “Gobbler Club.”

17. Nebraska

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Nebraska’s football team was known by a variety of nicknames before 1900, including the Old Gold Knights, Rattlesnake Boys, Antelopes, and Bugeaters. There are conflicting stories as to how the Bugeaters nickname originated. One theory links the nickname to a bull bat indigenous to the plains that ate insects. Another account traces the name to an East Coast reporter who was convinced that there was nothing for Nebraskans to eat during a drought other than the bugs that devoured all of their crops.

No matter the origin of Bugeaters, Charles Sumner “Cy” Sherman, sports editor for the Nebraska State Journal, was not a fan of the moniker. In 1899, Sherman, who would later help develop the Associated Press poll, suggested Cornhuskers instead. The nickname had been used by the Nebraska student newspaper as a derisive nickname for Iowa’s football team in 1894, but was soon adopted as a replacement for Bugeaters. In 1946, Nebraska became officially known as the Cornhusker State.

18. Ohio State

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Ohio State also borrows the state nickname for its athletic teams. A buckeye is a tree prevalent in the Ohio River Valley that produces shiny brown nuts with tan patches that resemble the eye of a deer, or buck. By 1800, Buckeye was being used as a term to refer to residents of the area. William Henry Harrison popularized the nickname by using the buckeye tree as a campaign symbol during the election of 1840.

19. Oklahoma State

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Before Oklahoma State University was OSU, it was Oklahoma A&M, and its athletic teams were known as the Agriculturists, Aggies, Farmers, or Tigers. The Tigers moniker and the selection of orange and black as the school’s colors were reportedly a tribute to a faculty member whose father was a Princeton graduate. Oklahoma A&M would become known as the “Princeton of the Plains.”

In 1923, the school was in search of a new mascot when U.S. Deputy Marshall Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton led the Armistice Day parade in Stillwater. Eaton, a renowned marksman, would become the model upon which OSU’s Pistol Pete mascot and Cowboys nickname were based. One year later, Oklahoma City Times sports editor Charles Saulsberry started referring to A&M as the Cowboys, and in 1926, balloons printed with “Oklahoma Aggies – Ride ‘Em Cowboy” were sold at home football games. Aggies and Cowboys were used interchangeably until the school was renamed Oklahoma State University in 1957.

20. Texas Christian University

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There are at least two accounts of how TCU's athletic teams became the Horned Frogs, but both of them trace the nickname to the late 19th century, when the school was still known as AddRan College. According to one story, the school’s football team practiced on a field that was teeming with horned frogs. The players shared some attributes with the fierce reptiles, not including their ability to shoot a stream of blood through their eyes, and reportedly began referring to themselves as horned frogs. According to another story, a four-student committee chose the nickname in 1897 for the football team and school yearbook.

21. Stanford

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Stanford adopted Indians as its official nickname in 1930, but the moniker was dropped in 1972 after meetings between Stanford’s Native American students and school president Richard Lyman. The student body held an election to decide on a new nickname, and while Robber Barons garnered the most support, new president Donald Kennedy expressed his concern that the moniker was disrespectful to school founder and railroad magnate Leland Stanford. Cardinals, or Cardinal, a reference to the school color, not the bird, was eventually adopted as Stanford’s official nickname. The Tree, symbolic of El Palo Alto (tall tree) that appears on the university’s seal, is a member of the Stanford Band and not recognized as an official mascot of the school.

22. Kansas State

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Kansas State’s athletic teams were originally referred to as the Aggies. In 1915, football coach John “Chief” Bender introduced the nickname Wildcats to describe his team’s fighting spirit. When Z.G. Clevenger replaced Bender in 1917, he changed the nickname to Farmers. In 1920, head coach Charles Bachman brought back Wildcats for good.

23. Florida

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In 1911, Florida’s student monthly, The Pennant, nicknamed Everglades native and UF center Neal Storter “Bo Gator.” According to The Pennant, the Alligator nickname was extended to the whole team during Florida’s trip to South Carolina that same year. Florida would finish undefeated that season and a local vendor ordered banners that featured an alligator. The nickname stuck.

24. Boise State

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Boise State’s nickname dates back to the school’s days as Boise Junior College. Originally founded by the Episcopal Church in 1932, the school attained four-year status and became Boise College in 1965. After a short stint as Boise State College, the school attained university status in 1974. If a Boise State alum, or anyone else for that matter, knows anything more about the origins of the Broncos nickname, please share in the comments.

25. Louisville

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Louisville chose Cardinal as its nickname sometime around 1913. The cardinal is Kentucky’s state bird.

Now in its 47th season, Sesame Street is one of television's most iconic programs—and it's not just for kids. We're big fans of the Street, and to prove it, here are some of our favorite Sesame facts from previous stories and our Amazing Fact Generator.

Sesame Workshop

1. Oscar the Grouch used to be orange. Jim Henson decided to make him green before season two.

2. How did Oscar explain the color change? He said he went on vacation to the very damp Swamp Mushy Muddy and turned green overnight.

3. During a 2004 episode, Cookie Monster said that before he started eating cookies, his name was Sid.

4. In 1980, C-3PO and R2-D2 visited Sesame Street. They played games, sang songs, and R2-D2 fell in love with a fire hydrant.

5. Mr. Snuffleupagus has a first name—Aloysius

6. Ralph Nader stopped by in 1988 and sang "a consumer advocate is a person in your neighborhood."

7. Caroll Spinney said he based Oscar's voice on a cab driver from the Bronx who brought him to the audition.

15. In 2002, the South African version (Takalani Sesame) added an HIV-positive Muppet named Kami.

16. Six Republicans on the House Commerce Committee wrote a letter to PBS president Pat Mitchell warning that Kami was not appropriate for American children, and reminded Mitchell that their committee controlled PBS' funding.

17.Sesame Street's resident game show host Guy Smiley was using a pseudonym. His real name was Bernie Liederkrantz.

18. Bert and Ernie have been getting questioned about their sexuality for years. Ernie himself, as performed by Steve Whitmere, has weighed in: “All that stuff about me and Bert? It’s not true. We’re both very happy, but we’re not gay,”

19. A few years later, Bert (as performed by Eric Jacobson) answered the same question by saying, “No, no. In fact, sometimes we are not even friends; he can be a pain in the neck.”

20. In the first season, both Superman and Batman appeared in short cartoons produced by Filmation. In one clip, Batman told Bert and Ernie to stop arguing and take turns choosing what’s on TV.

21. In another segment, Superman battled a giant chimp.

22. Telly was originally "Television Monster," a TV-obsessed Muppet whose eyes whirled around as he watched.

23. According to Sesame Workshop, Elmo is the only non-human to testify before Congress.

24. He lobbied for more funding for music education, so that "when Elmo goes to school, there will be the instruments to play."

25. In the early 1990s, soon after Jim Henson’s passing, a rumor circulated that Ernie would be killed off in order to teach children about death, as they'd done with Mr. Hooper.

26. According to Snopes, the rumor may have spread thanks to New Hampshire college student, Michael Tabor, who convinced his graduating class to wear “Save Ernie” beanies and sign a petition to persuade Sesame Workshop to let Ernie live.

27. By the time Tabor was corrected, the newspapers had already picked up the story.

28.Sesame Street’s Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente joined Sesame Workshop as a production assistant and has worked her way to the top.

29. Originally, Count von Count was more sinister. He could hypnotize and stun people.

30. According to Sesame Workshop, all Sesame Street's main Muppets have four fingers except Cookie Monster, who has five.

31. The episode with Mr. Hooper's funeral aired on Thanksgiving Day in 1983. That date was chosen because families were more likely to be together at that time, in case kids had questions or needed emotional support.

37. Sesame's Roosevelt Franklin ran a school, where he spoke in scat and taught about Africa. Some parents hated him, so in 1975 he got the boot, only to inspire Gob Bluth’s racist puppet Franklin on Arrested Development 28 years later.

38. Our good friend and contributor Eddie Deezen was the voice of Donnie Dodo in the 1985 classic Follow That Bird.

39. Cookie Monster evolved from The Wheel-Stealer—a snack-pilfering puppet Jim Henson created to promote Wheels, Crowns and Flutes in the 1960s.

40. This puppet later was seen eating a computer in an IBM training film and on The Ed Sullivan Show.

More than 30 years ago, Apple defined the Super Bowl commercial as a cultural phenomenon. Prior to Super Bowl XVIII, nobody watched the game "just for the commercials"—but one epic TV spot, directed by sci-fi legend Ridley Scott, changed all that. Read on for the inside story of the commercial that rocked the world of advertising, even though Apple's Board of Directors didn't want to run it at all.

THE AD

If you haven't seen it, here's a fuzzy YouTube version:

"WHY 1984 WON'T BE LIKE 1984"

The tagline "Why 1984 Won't Be Like '1984'" references George Orwell's 1949 novel 1984, which envisioned a dystopian future, controlled by a televised "Big Brother." The tagline was written by Brent Thomas and Steve Hayden of the ad firm Chiat\Day in 1982, and the pair tried to sell it to various companies (including Apple, for the Apple II computer) but were turned down repeatedly. When Steve Jobs heard the pitch in 1983, he was sold—he saw the Macintosh as a "revolutionary" product, and wanted advertising to match. Jobs saw IBM as Big Brother, and wanted to position Apple as the world's last chance to escape IBM's domination of the personal computer industry. The Mac was scheduled to launch in late January of 1984, a week after the Super Bowl. IBM already held the nickname "Big Blue," so the parallels, at least to Jobs, were too delicious to miss.

Thomas and Hayden wrote up the story of the ad: we see a world of mind-controlled, shuffling men all in gray, staring at a video screen showing the face of Big Brother droning on about "information purification directives." A lone woman clad in vibrant red shorts and a white tank-top (bearing a Mac logo) runs from riot police, dashing up an aisle towards Big Brother. Just before being snatched by the police, she flings a sledgehammer at Big Brother's screen, smashing him just after he intones "We shall prevail!" Big Brother's destruction frees the minds of the throng, who quite literally see the light, flooding their faces now that the screen is gone. A mere eight seconds before the one-minute ad concludes, a narrator briefly mentions the word "Macintosh," in a restatement of that original tagline: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'" An Apple logo is shown, and then we're out—back to the game.

"... It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM-dominated and -controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?"

After seeing the ad for the first time, the Apple audience totally freaked out (jump to about the 5-minute mark to witness the riotous cheering).

SKINHEADS, A DISCUS THROWER, AND A SCI-FI DIRECTOR

Chiat\Day hired Ridley Scott, whose 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner had the dystopian tone they were looking for (and Alien wasn't so bad either). Scott filmed the ad in London, using actual skinheads playing the mute bald men—they were paid $125 a day to sit and stare at Big Brother; those who still had hair were paid to shave their heads for the shoot. Anya Major, a discus thrower and actress, was cast as the woman with the sledgehammer largely because she was actually capable of wielding the thing.

Mac programmer Andy Hertzfeld wrote an Apple II program "to flash impressive looking numbers and graphs on [Big Brother's] screen," but it's unclear whether his program was used for the final film. The ad cost a shocking $900,000 to film, plus Apple booked two premium slots during the Super Bowl to air it—carrying an airtime cost of more than $1 million.

WHAT EXECUTIVES AT APPLE THOUGHT

Although Jobs and his marketing team (plus the assembled throng at his 1983 internal presentation) loved the ad, Apple's Board of Directors hated it. After seeing the ad for the first time, board member Mike Markkula suggested that Chiat\Day be fired, and the remainder of the board were similarly unimpressed. Then-CEO John Sculley recalled the reaction after the ad was screened for the group: "The others just looked at each other, dazed expressions on their faces ... Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen. Not a single outside board member liked it." Sculley instructed Chiat\Day to sell off the Super Bowl airtime they had purchased, but Chiat\Day principal Jay Chiat quietly resisted. Chiat had purchased two slots—a 60-second slot in the third quarter to show the full ad, plus a 30-second slot later on to repeat an edited-down version. Chiat sold only the 30-second slot and claimed it was too late to sell the longer one. By disobeying his client's instructions, Chiat cemented Apple's place in advertising history.

When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak heard that the ad was in trouble, he offered to pony up half the airtime costs himself, saying, "I asked how much it was going to cost, and [Steve Jobs] told me $800,000. I said, 'Well, I'll pay half of it if you will.' I figured it was a problem with the company justifying the expenditure. I thought an ad that was so great a piece of science fiction should have its chance to be seen."

But Woz didn't have to shell out the money; the executive team finally decided to run a 100-day advertising extravaganza for the Mac's launch, starting with the Super Bowl ad—after all, they had already paid to shoot it and were stuck with the airtime.

WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE THOUGHT

When the ad aired, controversy erupted—viewers either loved or hated the ad, and it spurred a wave of media coverage that involved news shows replaying the ad as part of covering it, leading to estimates of an additional $5 million in "free" airtime for the ad. All three national networks, plus countless local markets, ran news stories about the ad. "1984" become a cultural event, and served as a blueprint for future Apple product launches. The marketing logic was brilliantly simple: create an ad campaign that sparked controversy (for example, by insinuating that IBM was like Big Brother), and the media will cover your launch for free, amplifying the message.

The full ad famously ran once during the Super Bowl XVIII (on January 22, 1984), but it also ran the month prior—on December 31, 1983, TV station operator Tom Frank ran the ad on KMVT at the last possible time slot before midnight, in order to qualify for 1983's advertising awards.* (Any awards the ad won would mean more media coverage.) Apple paid to screen the ad in movie theaters before movie trailers, further heightening anticipation for the Mac launch. In addition to all that, the 30-second version was aired across the country after its debut on the Super Bowl.

Chiat\Day adman Steve Hayden recalled: "We ran a 30- second version of '1984' in the top 10 U.S. markets, plus, in an admittedly childish move, in an 11th market—Boca Raton, Florida, headquarters for IBM's PC division." Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld ended his remembrance of the ad by saying:

"A week after the Macintosh launch, Apple held its January board meeting. The Macintosh executive staff was invited to attend, not knowing what to expect. When the Mac people entered the room, everyone on the board rose and gave them a standing ovation, acknowledging that they were wrong about the commercial and congratulating the team for pulling off a fantastic launch.

Chiat\Day wanted the commercial to qualify for upcoming advertising awards, so they ran it once at 1 AM at a small television station in Twin Falls, Idaho, KMVT, on December 15, 1983 [incorrect; see below for an update on this -ed]. And sure enough it won just about every possible award, including best commercial of the decade. Twenty years later it's considered one of the most memorable television commercials ever made."

THE AWFUL 1985 FOLLOW-UP

A year later, Apple again employed Chiat\Day to make a blockbuster ad for their Macintosh Office product line, which was basically a file server, networking gear, and a laser printer. Directed by Ridley Scott's brother Tony, the new ad was called "Lemmings," and featured blindfolded businesspeople whistling an out-of-tune version of Snow White's "Heigh-Ho" as they followed each other off a cliff (referencing the myth of lemming suicide).

Jobs and Sculley didn't like the ad, but Chiat\Day convinced them to run it, pointing out that the board hadn't liked the last ad either. But unlike the rousing, empowering message of the "1984" ad, "Lemmings" directly insulted business customers who had already bought IBM computers. It was also weirdly boring—when it was aired at the Super Bowl (with Jobs and Sculley in attendance), nobody really reacted. The ad was a flop, and Apple even proposed running a printed apology in TheWall Street Journal. Jay Chiat shot back, saying that if Apple apologized, Chiat would buy an ad on the next page, apologizing for the apology. It was a mess:

20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

In 2004, the ad was updated for the launch of the iPod. The only change was that the woman with the hammer was now listening to an iPod, which remained clipped to her belt as she ran. You can watch that version too:

FURTHER READING

Check out Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld's excellent first-person account of the ad. A similar account (but with more from Jobs's point of view) can found in the Steve Jobs biography, and an even more in-depth account is in The Mac Bathroom Reader. The Mac Bathroom Reader is out of print; you can read an excerpt online, including QuickTime movies of the two versions of the ad, plus a behind-the-scenes video. Finally, you might enjoy this 2004 USA Today article about the ad, pointing out that ads for other computers (including Atari, Radio Shack, and IBM's new PCjr) also ran during that Super Bowl.

* = A Note on the Airing in 1983

Update: Thanks to Tom Frank for writing in to correct my earlier mis-statement about the first air date of this commercial. As you can see in his comment below, Hertzfeld's comments above (and the dates cited in other accounts I've seen) are incorrect. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Frank, in which we discuss what it was like running both "1984" and "Lemmings" before they were on the Super Bowl!